


waiting for the light to go

by norikae



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Dreamscapes, Established Relationship, M/M, here there be strange things afoot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-01-20 19:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18531556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norikae/pseuds/norikae
Summary: Sometimes, he sees in so much colour.





	waiting for the light to go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyrophane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrophane/gifts).



> hello!! my song was shine. i think it is a song laced heavily with threads of devotion and wanting but also an acknowledgment of personal cost and sacrifice...i hope some of that comes across ๑•‿•๑ 
> 
> shoutout to ash and to a lesser extent rae, at whom this cannon was specifically aimed

It starts with a dream.

Straightforward enough. In the dream Junhui is suspended in water, and his legs are kicking even though he doesn't know how to swim. It doesn't seem to matter.

He blinks, slow, analogue, and the light shafting in seems to waver. Gain a life of its own, asking him to watch it as it goes, prompting him to reach out and watch it sift through his fingers like so many liquid beads of sand.

So he does. Junhui has never been the best at saying no.

If you asked him what happens next, he wouldn't be able to tell you. There's a brief moment of absolute weightlessness - like he's been gathered up by some force, suspended in the air. Like he's a ball at the peak of its upward flight, at the precise zenith of his trajectory before he sinks back down. When everything is loud, is slow, is still.

Then the world rushes up to meet him, and Junhui overbalances, eyes widening as he tips forward the way one might when tripping on the sidewalk. His hand flails. His feet lose their place. Curiously enough, he still doesn't choke.

Distantly, he thinks he hears a laugh.

 

\---

 

“So I had a weird dream last night,” he tells Seungcheol, over a breakfast of eggs and bacon. The older boy hums indulgently, scrolling on his phone - Junhui squints - must be Instagram. His suspicions are confirmed when Seungcheol grins widely at something he sees, doubletapping the screen, then proceeds to scroll some more.

“ _Hyung_ ,” Junhui whines, not the least bit petulant. “Are you _listening_ to me.”

When Seungcheol glances up his eyes are wide with exaggerated innocence. “Yes?” he guesses, mouth configured to _Cheolie-hyung Catalogued Expression #233: Grin That Is An Open Admission of Guilt._ Junhui sighs.

“Okay, you were,” he agrees, going along with it for the very briefest slice of a moment. “So what did I say, again?”

Seungcheol’s mouth crumples upwards into a pout, his default expression whenever something doesn't go _exactly_ the way he'd planned. “Fine,” he huffs, brows knitting. “You got me. So maybe I wasn't.”

Junhui stretches triumphantly across the tabletop, his balled up fists going all the way across the table when he reaches. “You should know better than to try to fool me on these things,” he purrs.

Seungcheol takes the point, smiling; batting halfheartedly at the hand closest to him, he sinks his face back into the palm of his left hand, resting it squarely on the tabletop. “So?” he prompts. “What was it?”

Junhui screws up his face in thought. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “So I had a really weird dream last night.”

Seungcheol quirks a brow. Junhui tends to get dreams about anything and everything. Sometimes it's something mundane, sometimes incredibly fantastical. The sticking point is that usually, at least part of it turns out to be true. “Oh?”

“Yeah, so.” Junhui starts. “So I was in the sea, or something. Like, just floating.”

Seungcheol nods to show he's listening. “And you know that's already a little off because - ”

“ - You can't swim, yes,” Seungcheol completes for him. “And then?”

Junhui frowns, and hesitates. The pieces are suddenly hazy to him, like he's peering at it through an old window, fogged up by time and smoke. “And then I… I fell,” he manages. Did he? He thinks he did.

Seungcheol cocks his head. Junhui is grateful for the way he does not mock. He never does. Instead he asks, “Fell?”

“Yeah,” Junhui says, “And I swear someone was there - there was a voice, I heard -” _him?_ “- It.”

He pauses. They look at each other for a while, silent. Junhui suddenly feels silly, embarrassed; tugging at the drawstring of his hoodie, he finishes, “...Weird, huh?”

When he looks at him Seungcheol's eyes are wide and as clear as the moon.

“Yeah,” he hums, blinking slowly. Reaches over to gently tug Junhui's hand away from where it's fidgeting, holding it loosely in his own. His touch grounds. “Weird.”

 

\---

 

It comes again.

The moment it opens, Junhui is aware that he is a player on a stage. He tries to move his arms and legs, testing the boundaries of his agency - they move, but slowly, and it makes his head heavy, like when you’re bone-deep tired and trying to stay awake but unconsciousness has taken your hand, is pulling you in. He stops, and the fog clears.

The scene is exactly the same, except - maybe because he’s paying attention this time - the water seems clearer, the light more vivid. He thinks he can feel the cold, now, and it stills the fire trembling beneath his skin.

With some effort he slowly turns his head upwards, catching sight of the surface above him. Despite how far away it seems the light cuts in cleanly, tingling where it touches his face; Junhui observes the slow flicker of the waves above before he looks back in front of him. Notices the same singular beam of light - more solid than the rest - dancing just out of his reach, and - he would swear - calling his name.

This time, he forces a foot forward, even if it feels like wading through quicksand. It brings him close enough so that he _can_ reach for it. But as soon as his hand closes around the beam it just _vanishes_ , glitching out of existence as he watches.

Startled, Junhui jerks his hand back, looks down at it like it can’t be real, even though he really shouldn’t be surprised. It’s a dream, after all.

There is suddenly a voice beside his ear. _Gotcha_ , it says, but when he whips his head around to look, there is nothing there but the sound of shifting sea.

 

\---

 

They're at the beach. Junhui sits in the shade, tired after too many hours of volleyball, watching idly as the others do - whatever it is they’re doing, honestly, he’d lost track of their shenanigans long ago. The sun and exertion have made him sticky; Junhui tries to shift so less of him is in contact with the mat, and reaches for a water bottle to spray himself in the face.

Some distance away, in a spurt of humour Minghao has stolen Mingyu’s cap. Junhui watches as he sprints rapidly across the beach like a gazelle, speedily becoming a spot on the horizon. With an almighty shout Mingyu is giving chase; Junhui hears _Give that back!_ , and Minghao’s responding _You weren’t using it anyway_.

He snorts. Mingyu had been wearing it, yes, but backwards, the rest of them exchanging looks when he’d shielded his eyes from the sun, and promptly complained about how the glare meant he couldn’t see. They had all come to a silent agreement not to say a word.

With all the commotion, the rest of their friend group has stopped playing. Junhui turns to see the others trooping over to where he is, in the miniature camp of beach towels and umbrellas they’d set up earlier. Hansol is at the head of the rest, and he waves as he approaches.

“‘Sup, hyung,” Hansol greets, plopping himself down next to him. “Tired?”

Junhui eyes the other ten of them who are going to be joining them in the space very soon. “It’s the sun,” he tells him, but gets up into a squat, squinting off at where the sun is reflecting off the sea. “I might go hang out by the water, though, it’s gonna be crowded here soon.”

Hansol laughs aloud at that, punching him lightly in the arm. “Go, hyung,” he chortles. “Be free. Before the smelly men cage you.”

“Aaah, they’re gonna get me,” Junhui wails, pushing off into a standing position and waving at Hansol as he jogs off. They’re a decent distance from the water; by the time he slows back down to a walk he’s just started to sweat.

Still, he doesn’t mind. Junhui pads close to it and bends into a crouch, arms curling around his knees as he watches the waves lap at the shore. The rhythm and hush is soothing, and even as something tugs at the back of his mind he finds his lids falling slowly shut, lulled into something approaching a half-dose.

The sun beats down against his back, warming his skin to something that feels like it should be gold. Junhui stirs only at the sound of footsteps approaching, has only just blinked sleep out of his vision and begun to turn his head to look when a shadow falls upon him, obscuring most of his vision.

Seungcheol’s head is tilted so far right for a moment it seems as if one of them must be on the wrong axis. If that were the case, Junhui thinks it would be him. “Sleepy?” he asks, mouth pulled wide into an affectionate smile.

Junhui nods a little, rubbing at his eyes with the back of a hand. “Kinda,” he admits, sheepishly. “The sun, like… drinks your energy, you know?”

Seungcheol nods in understanding, even though Junhui had seen how relentlessly he’d played volleyball for something approaching three hours straight. Even now he seems bright, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice. “It does,” he chirps in agreement.

Then something seems to occur to him, and he sinks into a squat next to Junhui, one arm sweeping out to point at the water. “Which reminds me,” he says, “I noticed something when I was coming to get you.”

Junhui follows his outstretched arm. “Yeah?” he asks, not quite catching on.

When Seungcheol moves his hand, Junhui’s gaze follows. “It’s kinda cool,” he says, “Somehow the waves are pulling in closer to you than the rest of the shore.” The line of his index indicates the place where the pattern of the crashing waves seems almost to dip, a short distance away. A quick glance to his left indicates the same on the other side, like the water is surging towards him. “Weird, huh?”

Junhui blinks, slowly, mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah,” he echoes, mindful of the deja vu. “Weird.”

 

\---

 

The glare of the television is loud in the twilight cast of their living room. Junhui curls more into Seungcheol’s side, turns his head, pushes his nose into the join of neck and bone. He hasn’t been sleeping well; between that and the recent onslaught of deadlines and papers, this time of theirs is hard-won.

Seungcheol’s chin bumps lightly into his forehead. His voice is low, coarse at the edges. “Junnie?” On the screen there’s an old cartoon rerun playing. A penguin, waddling across the screen in supersaturated colour. “What’s wrong?”

Suddenly feeling childish, Junhui shifts so the curve of his head rests in the groove instead. Watches his own hand come up and fist in the fabric of Seungcheol’s ugly grey varsity jersey, then says, eventually, “It’s nothing.”

Seungcheol raises the hand that isn’t trapped between them both to lightly graze Junhui’s own. “Anyone could see you’re bothered,” he chastises gently, “It goes without saying for me.”

It nudges a huff of laughter out of him, because - well, of course. That’s Seungcheol for you. “It’s… it’s the dream I told you about,” he says, tugging once more before he lets his hand fall against Seungcheol’s lap. He tilts his head a little so he’s looking up at Seungcheol, can watch the way his lashes splay out like a fan. “Remember?”

Seungcheol hums, twines their hands together. “The one about the water, right?”

Junhui smiles. Nods a little, plays with the thumb in his grasp. “It happened again,” he says, “There’s a… I feel like there’s someone there. I think it’s a him, I think he’s - He’s reaching out to me.”

Pause. He laughs, embarrassed. “No, I guess that sounds really silly, but it’s funny because … it felt like a continuation of the first one… you know how dreams usually - you can tell they’re not _real,_  later, but this time… I.” Junhui stops. “Ah, I should listen to myself… I haven’t been sleeping and now I’m just saying whatever.”

He makes to pull away. “Sorry, hyung.”

He doesn’t make it there, kept in place by a light hold. “Don’t do that,” Seungcheol says, gently. “You shouldn’t ignore your feelings.”

Junhui bites his lip. “Do you believe me?”

“I won’t pretend I understand,” Seungcheol tells him very gently. “But I believe you.”

He’s being as honest as he can, but he still feels like he’s lying. “What if it’s real, hyung?” Junhui asks, aware of how loud his voice is, how oddly pitched it’s become. “What if I have to…” he trails off, because he doesn’t know. There's a nagging feeling, but nothing that he can put into words. “...What if?”

Seungcheol is silent for a while. Junhui thinks about birds, and how their bones are hollow, and how they are such flighty things. The pressure of a hand on his keeps him from startling away from the ground.

“I’ll listen to you,” Seungcheol says. “I will always hear you out.”

For now, it’s enough.

 

\---

 

The next time, Junhui is prepared.

He phases into the dream in stages - the cold, not-wet sensation. The strange suspension of air, his chest still but himself very much alive. Sight is the last to come, even though he knows before opening his eyes what he will see.

He waits until the thought of opening his mouth is accompanied by the sensation of his jaw working. “Who are you?” he asks, plainly, even though his voice catches and the first word stutters. He imagines he takes a breath, puffs his chest out, fills his lungs with bravado.

There’s a laugh, the same one from the first time. The voice is clear, even if no form is forthcoming. “Who are _you,_ ” the stranger says, but the voice is human, distinctly male.

Junhui blinks. “You should know,” he tells the voice, “You’re the one who came to me.”

He thinks maybe whoever or whatever he is, the being hadn’t expected the point. “Jisoo,” it says, at length. “You can call me that.”

It feels something like a victory. “Okay. Jisoo,” he says, “What’s going on?”

“Hyung.”

“What?”

He thinks he hears a _tsk._  “It’s Jisoo- _hyung_ ,” the voice says, “I’m older than you are.”

Junhui pouts instinctively. “Maybe if I could see you,” he says. “Are you even human?”

Jisoo laughs again. “Are you?”

“What?” Junhui asks, baffled. “I mean - I’m pretty sure I - hey, hold on - _hey!_ ”

He’s being pushed out of the dream now, he knows, his senses slowly slipping away from him. It isn’t alarming, or anything - mostly he feels a little put off, the way he’d finally gotten to ask whatever it - _he_ \- was some questions, but had been cut off before receiving any proper answers.

 _Too many questions_ , he hears, inside his head, but the turn of the voice is amused. It is the last thing he hears before the scene goes black.

 

\---

 

His waffles are growing cold. Junhui knows he shouldn't be surprised, considering there's ice cream scooped generously onto them, but he is, anyway. The obvious seems to elude him all too often nowadays; slowly, he slices a piece off with his knife, forks it into his mouth and chews agonisingly slowly, feeling the way it turns to an unappetising mush as he does.

He catches Seungcheol's eye, and the other boy smiles, raising an eyebrow in greeting. He doesn't react in time - instantly Seungcheol reads his hesitation, asks, “What's up?”

He swallows his initial compulsion to change the subject. He knows better by now. “Hyung,” he says, pauses. “I - Well. I'm sure you can guess.”

Seungcheol frowns, that way he has where the emotion takes over all of his face. “What - Oh, the dreams? Are you still having them?”

Junhui is grateful to feel heard, as he knows he should be, but it doesn't explain the way his mouth runs dry with an unfamiliar feeling he doesn't want to name. “Yeah, I…” he stops. “Still having them,” he admits.

“Wow,” Seungcheol hums happily, sounding impressed. He laces his fingers together and rests his chin on them, flitting off momentarily into a cloud half-home to a daydream. “Wonder what it means, huh. Remember when you dreamed that Minghao had brought a dog home and named it Mingyu, and the next day we found out they'd gotten together that very same night?”

“I mean yes, but hyung -”

Seungcheol is absorbed now. “Or when I couldn't find my student ID for _months,_  and then you dreamed a second version of me had come into our house and gone to sleep under my bed, and then it turns out my card had been hiding there, hidden by a shadow all along?”

“Hyung, that's not quite -”

“Oh,” Seungcheol gasps in delight. “What about last last week, when you took a dream trip into space, and then the next day there was the first image of a black hole ever? Maybe this is like tha -”

“ _Hyung!_ ”

The clattering of his hands on the flimsy wood table jolts them both out of their respective reveries. Seungcheol stares at him, wide-eyed, as he, too, processes his own outburst, not meant, not willed. “Sorry,” he apologises, instantly. “I just… I need you to listen to me.”

Quickly Seungcheol rearranges his limbs to fold himself smaller and peers at him warily, chastised. “Okay,” he says. “Go on.”

Junhui purses his lips, unable to shake the guilt for having lashed out. “It’s just,” he says, “It’s just that the dreams _move_ , hyung. They’re the same setting but it’s not the same thing happening every time, it’s - it feels real.” He pauses to let it sink in for a moment. “Like I’m visiting another world, and there's someone there, he's always waiting for me.”

“He -” Junhui frowns and pauses for a moment, trying to form his impression into words. “He's. Really secretive. I feel like there's so much he isn't telling me.” Then he looks up and makes eye contact, resolute. “But he's real, hyung, I know it, I felt - felt like he was really there.”

Then it clicks, the wide eyes, the up turned brows. Seungcheol blinks once, twice, his long lashes graceful, before he says, “You seem very...invested, Junnie.”

Junhui feels his earth shift by a fraction of a degree, so that abruptly everything is painted in a slightly different light. Nothing else changes. It keeps on turning.

“I,” he starts, defensive, then stops. Thinks about how the voice has been in his head for weeks, how he's almost taken to being apprehensive about sleep, wanting to be prepared for when he has the dream again. Thinks about how that's clouded all his interactions with everyone, even - and especially - Seungcheol.

“I,” he begins again, unable to disagree. “Maybe?” A panic is besetting him, as much frightened by the revelation as Seungcheol looks to be. “I don't know, it's just that I -”

_have been thinking of water, lately._

“You said so yourself, that - that I'm always dreaming, right, and that it always means something -”

_\- and when i am holding the light, and wondering about its weight, and all the conversations none of us have, i think of standing on edges and turning back, and of compromise in choice -_

He startles, remembering something he hadn't known. Tries again. “Haven't you ever felt like there's something missing?”

Seungcheol draws away abruptly, is sitting rigidly in his seat, brows knit as he looks at Junhui. The doubt is plain in his voice. “What - Jun, what do you mean?”

Too late, Junhui catches up, still half in his daze. Desperately, he tries to correct the situation. “No, hyung, that's not what I meant. You - it's not you, it's…”

_\- in the spaces between us, and when they grow, it makes me wonder -_

He stops again, frustrated. Short for words. “You know when I dream, and I have to find what it means, and you listen to me but you don't. You don't _know_ , and I can see you wondering sometimes, and I just…”

Seungcheol's bright, wide eyes are so dreadfully disconsolate. “Junnie, it's okay. Can you just -” Junhui watches him oscillate, a pendulum on a string, wonders if they are in a vacuum, where the motion will never stop.

_\- won't you ask me to stay?_

After another moment of struggle, Seungcheol shakes his head. “No, it's. Never mind. We can drop it, it's fine, can we please -”. He looks at Junhui properly, reaches over, takes his hand loosely in one of his own. “We can talk about something else, if you want? Is that okay with you?”

It isn't what he wants. But that isn't really the question here. Not by far.

Junhui brushes his thumb over Seungcheol's, managing a watery smile. “Okay,” he says, and reaching for his fork, stabs at the waffle, watching as it soaks up the melted ice cream, mixing and blurring and meshing into sludge.

 

\---

 

“I think I messed up,” Junhui tells him, as soon as he can feel his mouth. As far as it's possible to tell someone something when you don't know what they are or if they're there, anyhow.

He isn't let down. A sympathetic hum sounds. “I know,” the voice he knows as Jisoo's tells him, “I was there, after all.”

Junhui frowns, snaps his head up. He feels his eyes widen in shock - it is only just barely perceptible when the light falls just so, but he knows it's there. A shadow of a man, painted in light instead of its absence.

“You what,” he asks, eloquently. “You aren't real.”

The silhouette has no features. Not even a discernible form, but Junhui swears he can see it tilt its head in amusement as it takes a seat on a chair he can't see, crossing its arms. “Why would you say that,” he chides, “It was insisting I was that got you into this in the first place.”

He is at a loss for words. Junhui chews on his lip, remembers that everything that is being said is known only to one person besides himself, and comes to a conclusion. “This _is_ inside my head,” he posits, “I'm just talking to myself. There's no way you have - have agency of your own.”

Jisoo sounds almost disappointed, in a longsuffering kind of way. “First I'm real, and then I'm not,” he sings. “Make up your mind, Junhui.”

For the first time Junhui feels the restraints of the water pressing in upon him on every side, remembers all the things he cannot do. “I don't know,” he confesses. “I was so sure, but then - I've always been so involved in my dreams. You could be part of that. It's just like I'm always -"

Jisoo cuts in. Knowing. “- Between worlds?”

It isn't what he was going to say, but it sticks anyway, catching in his sternum on his next inhale, fluttering wildly as he proceeds to breathe out. “You could say that,” he concedes after a few beats. “It's always been. Hard to explain.”

Jisoo looks at him. He can feel that much. “It doesn't have to be,” he suggests, vaguely.

“What does that even mean,” Junhui pleads. “You're the closest I've ever come to explaining this - this constant feeling, this state of being lost. I - you saw, surely, how even someone so close to me didn't - he got _scared_ , Jisoo. I can't do that. Not to him, not myself.”

Jisoo makes a noncommittal sound. There is something like a warmth of his forearm, and when he glances down there might be the suggestion of a hand, slight of size.

“You shouldn't be,” he lectures, gently. Junhui feels a gentle pressure pushing him backwards, and he instinctively submits, letting his weight fall back into a float. Facing the sky, the sun is bright in his eyes, on his skin, his face. He knows he's in the water. Knows he cannot swim.

Jisoo's voice is something like a lullaby, if oddly bereft of a melody. It is still a song that lays him to bed. “You're asking the wrong questions,” he chides, and Junhui blinks, and falls asleep.

 

\---

 

Minghao is drinking a smoothie again. He's always doing that. Has been for eight years, now, and personal disgust aside, there is something inexplicably comforting about the knowledge that some things always stay the same.

“Okay. Out with it,” he says suddenly, hitting _post_ on Instagram and clicking his screen off as he sets it down. “Something's bothering you, and it's so bad it's bothering _me_ , too.”

More than anyone, Minghao has always been able to see right through him. From the moment he decided he wanted to, anyway.

But lately Junhui has felt worn at the seams, and thinks it would be nice to be able to keep _some_ things to himself for once. “I'm not _that_ much of an open book,” he demurs, for the sake of it.

There's a loud _slorp_ as Minghao pointedly takes a long, unimpressed drag of his repulsive green drink. “Jun,” he says, sans honorifics to make a point. “Tell me, before you combust from internal struggle just to be stubborn.”

He hates it when Minghao is right. “I hate it when you're right,” Junhui says. But he gives in quickly, anyway - Minghao has always had that effect on him.

“Well. Hypothetically. This question has been bugging me for a while, right?”

Very slowly, very pronounced, Minghao's right eyebrow scales his face. “Uhuh,” he says, “Go on.”

“Right. Right.” Junhui takes a breath, stirring his latte with his straw for a while. “So say you have dreams, and they're always. There's always something real about them. Right? Hypothetically.”

Minghao nods to show he's listening. “Hypothetically,” he agrees.

“And then one day a dream comes that just doesn't leave you,” he says. “And it seems to change the world around you. And you tell - you tell someone who knows you better than anyone else.” He pauses, abrupt. “And he doesn't tell you to stay.”

He drags his gaze away from where it's wandered off to lodge on a painting on the wall. A splash of yellow and green gazes impassively back at him. “What do you do?”

Minghao's looking at him with his characteristic mix of patience and annoyance, lips pursed. “You're the worst at explaining things,” he snipes, but there is a smooth edge to it. Belatedly, Junhui backtracks - realises the way he'd told the story wouldn't make sense to anyone but himself - and makes to explain again, only Minghao is already talking, unfazed, as always, by the missing pieces.

“You're afraid,” Minghao states, very matter of factly. “So you try to insulate him from the uncomfortable. You're making decisions for him and the both of you that force you into a false dead-end, that you wouldn't be in if you were just honest.” He sips at the last dregs of his green juice. “Sometimes you have to communicate on a point of conflict, Jun. It doesn't mean the world is going to end.”

Junhui lets his lower lip protrude in protest, pushing the upper one into a curve, too. “I communicate,” he says softly, having dropped all pretense of the hypothetical. “I talk to Cheolie-hyung about everything. He knows everything about me and more.”

Minghao's scrutinising gaze is critical, but not unkind. “If I know you,” he rebuts, “That only extends to the parts you think are desirable, or at least tolerable. You're holding back what scares you because you think it'll scare him, too, and half of you thinks he doesn't deserve it, while the other half says you won't deserve him.”

A pause, then a hand lays itself on his, a bony thumb comforting against his wrist. “There's nothing wrong with facing up to that fear so you can deal with it too, you know?”

Junhui watches the gentle brush of skin on his own, a reminder of how he is caught  between an almost-touch and a love he cannot let pass. “Yeah,” he echoes, weakly. “I know.”

 

\---

 

He catches up to Seungcheol in a corridor after lecture, tugging him into an alcove by the loose material of his faded red hoodie.

It's Seungcheol's last class of the day, he knows, and it's almost funny how clear that fact is, from the way his determination breaks comically upon being tugged at. How his backpack is hurriedly thrown over both shoulders for once, and the way his hair is sticking up haphazardly in front, like he'd just woken up abruptly from an inappropriate classtime snooze.

Junhui's heart seizes with longing. He begs it to move when he goes, “Hey, hyung.”

Seungcheol blinks at him once, twice. This slow, the movement of his eyelids almost seems to stutter. “Junnie,” he says, because even when he's upset he is fond. “What is it?”

Junhui takes a deep breath. “I have a lot to explain to you,” he manages, and it falls out in a rush as fast as he can get it to while his courage holds out. “But first, we have to start at the beginning.”

“Huh?” - then - “You okay?” Seungcheol asks, clearly concerned in spite of them both, all the points they haven't met at recently. “Have you not been sleeping well - I know sometimes your dreams do that to you, and I'm sorry if I contributed to that in any w-”

Junhui shakes his head no, grabbing Seungcheol's hand, the material of his hoodie soft against his skin. “No, that's not it, hyung,” he says. “What I've been talking about recently - I've figured it out, I. I'm going to show you. If you let me I'm going to show you what I mean.”

Seungcheol hesitates, visibly. “What do you mean,” he says, sounding vulnerable. “I don't know if I should -”

“Please,” Junhui pleads, heart open. "If you'll let me show you, then maybe you'll understand."

Seungcheol falters. There is a moment like the hush at the end of a fuse, before his nature wins out, and he acquiesces.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

 

\---

 

They're in a Tom n Tom's. A tad unabashedly, they've hogged a four seater table for themselves, pressed against the side of the glass so they can bask in the light falling in. The rest of the space houses their stuff - and the place is crowded, so he feels bad, but Seungcheol said they'll simply clear the table if anyone asks to sit.

Idly, Junhui glances up to stare at Seungcheol as he works on some paper that isn't due for another 2 months. On his screen, his laptop's paused on a YouTube funny cat videos compilation. The other boy doesn't look up, engrossed in highlighting key terms he's going to use for his thesis, brow furrowed endearingly in thought.

After a few seconds he remembers _he_ has a class test coming up, and tabs away absently to the slides he'd been reviewing pre-accidental Youtube break. He's just pulled up the Word document he'd been taking notes in when there's a hesitant throat clearing.

“Excuse me, but is this seat taken?”

Junhui glances up distractedly, shuffling some of the notes that have been haphazardly strewn on the table out of the way. “No, yeah - you can sit, sorry, we’re a little.” He stops at the sight of large feline eyes set into a small face, something jogging his memory.

Seungcheol looks up as well, blinking slowly. A flicker of confusion passes over his face even as he reaches for his textbook to drop it onto the ground next to him. “My bad, please sit,” he says, distracted - glances towards Junhui, like he’s looking for some sort of confirmation.

The boy smiles brightly, and his eyes curve into crescents when he does. “Thanks,” he says, placing his bag down and sliding into the seat next to Junhui. They watch in silence as he unpacks for a few moments, then looks up when he’s done. He looks briefly embarrassed.

“Sorry, forgot to introduce myself,” he says, holding out his hand in greeting. His eyes are dark, and his voice - Junhui knows, now, eyes rounding in shock. Across the table he knows Seungcheol must look the same. He knows, before the boy speaks, what it is that he’s going to say.

“I’m Jisoo.”

 

\---

 

They’re in the water. In the same way it always has the sun filters down, cutting through the blue in shafts of light. There is a conspicuous absence - he knows, because he has been told.

The surface seems higher above than before. It doesn't bother him, now, how distant he is from air, the home he has safe on solid ground. This is real, has always been, and there is nothing frightening about the water if you have learned to look into it.

It isn't cold anymore. Not the way it used to be. On his right there is a laugh, on his left an awed sigh.

Junhui smiles, and takes their hands in each of his own.

**Author's Note:**

> *breakdancing cheerfully* [ you know where to find me ](http://twitter.com/frogbabey)


End file.
